The Story of How I Missed You
by shimmeryshine
Summary: Post-ep for Headhunters. Beckett stops by Castle's loft to fix some things, both skin deep and otherwise.
1. one

__A/N: SO SAPPY OMG. This just kind of got away from me, I THINK I JUST NEEDED SOME OF THIS. There will probably be a _not sappy_ part two though, just in case you want to be on the look out for that.

* * *

_you can tell me the story of how you missed me  
that the silence was making you uneasy  
__**no escape - civalias**_

* * *

Beckett shuffles from foot to foot in front of his door. It's kind of late, later than she's ever come over unannounced, later than is really socially acceptable but she can't get her own voice out of her head. Can't get _what if I waited too long_ out. Her blood is hot, desperate, screaming. For him, because of him, just _him_.

She put her job on the line and at the time it seemed like a step, but in the cold darkness of her apartment she couldn't be sure he got the message, couldn't be sure he caught the look in her eye, _partners_. Again, still, always.

_Yours, mine, ours_.

She gulps.

She needs to do this, she _misses him_.

One knock and then she's fisting her hands in her coat pockets, waiting for him. Waiting like he's waited for so long. She's wearing a loose fitting blouse, one that has these tiny buttons all down the front and they tickle the bare skin of her abdomen as she fidgets, waits some more. It feels like an eternity before the door swings wide and there he is, hair ruffled and black v-neck tshirt pulling pleasantly across his chest.

"Hi," she says, shrugging even though she doesn't really know why. It's like her entire existence in relation to him is a question right now. _Do you still…?_

"Beckett." He's surprised, but his eyes look so much warmer than they have in weeks and she almost breathes a sigh of relief.

"Sorry to just…" she trails off, not moving to cross the threshold.

"No, no. Come in?"

So many _questions_.

She follows his extended arm until she's firmly ensconced in his living room, warm lighting revealing no one else.

"Alexis and mother are in bed already," he explains without her even having to ask. At least it's not all gone, she thinks.

Her eyes cut to him as she squeezes the insides of her pockets, soft silk crushed between her fingers and something else, something cardboard and square and an _excuse_. He's waiting and this is her go, so she pulls her hand out of her pocket.

"I brought you something," she blurts, tossing him the half smashed box in her hand.

He catches it rather smoothly, holding it up with a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"Bandaids?"

She shrugs again. "I figured you might need some since you got…_Slaughtered_." He laughs at her joke and she wants to climb inside of the sound of it, it's been so long.

"Funny." She rolls her eyes a little bit and tilts her head back and forth, plays at being cocky but it doesn't quite stand up to her usual and she's sure he can tell. "It was just the nose though, and a bruise thing on the back of my shoulder, no major bodily harm." He rolls said shoulder at the mention of it, winces slightly as he does and then she takes a step closer to him.

"Let me see," she says before she really realizes what she's doing, reaching for the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes widen in surprise.

"I'm fine Beckett, it's just a bruise. I can handle it."

"Just let me look at it."

"You're offending my manly sensibilities."

She snorts like he's supposed to be some kind of macho man, poking him in his shoulder and watching him squeak and twist away from her. His look is more injured pride than injured skin.

"Fine," he sighs, moving to lift his tshirt up in the back. She helps him push it up, fingers dragging against his skin and the soft cotton of the shirt and she can feel him trying not to shiver at the sensation of it. The bruise is pretty high up on his shoulder blade, already purple around the edges with a nasty red line down the middle. He definitely hit something hard.

"Does it hurt?" she asks absently as she uses the hand not holding his shirt up to lightly trace around the edges. He hisses sharply at the press of her finger but she's not touching anywhere that should hurt badly enough to elicit that kind of response. Her heart starts beating faster.

"Just when you poke it." She really does roll her eyes then, but his voice is dry and tight and she is growing increasingly aware of what it is exactly that they are doing in the middle of his living room.

"Give me one of those bandaids." She holds her hand out over his arm, palm up.

He grumbles but doesn't argue, ripping into the box. She can feel him pause when he realizes what kind she's brought him.

"Are these Green Lantern bandaids?" He sounds like a five year old at the grocery store. "What I want to know is – " he pauses to peel the paper off, passing her back the sticky bandaid, " – did you _buy_ these for me or did you already _have _them?"

She grins as she presses the adhesive to his skin, gently smoothing with her fingers and then lets his shirt slide back downward. "I'll never tell," she leans up to breathe in his ear, chest barely brushing his back. She can feel him shiver and it's almost like old times. He turns around quickly then, catching her off guard because he's suddenly really, _really _close and this isn't old times at _all_.

He holds her gaze for a moment and she can feel him trying to figure her out. "Why are you here?" he breathes into the space between them, and it's so _heavy_ she can hardly swallow past the thick knot of absolutely everything in her throat.

_Do it do it do it_, she chants to herself.

Instead of answering, she takes the box of bandaids from his hand, holding eye contact until she has to reach down to pull the paper off. He's all furrowed, confused brow but she doesn't know how to say this so she's going to try and show him. The box slides back into her pocket as she peels back the paper, first one bandaid and then another, green and loud and ridiculous but also perfect, and then she's reaching out across the small amount of distance between them, sticking one to his shirt right over the left side of his chest.

"_Beckett_," he exhales as she crosses the other one to make an X, both right over where his heart is beating out a rapid rhythm underneath.

"I don't know how to fix this," she says, voice stuck and thick and _heavy_, her finger pointing at the _this_ she means.

He grabs her wrist, the one with still lingering fingers and then she finally looks up at him, flattens her palm against him completely, feeling the bandaids and his increasing pulse across her skin.

"_I miss you_." Her voice is so soft, so stuck in her throat that she's surprised he can hear her at all, but he suddenly pulls her into a crushing hug and she can barely keep down the gasping sob that wants to come spilling out of her chest.

His mouth is by her ear then, fingers tangled roughly in her hair, knotting she's sure but she hardly cares. "What are you doing?" he asks and she can hear the strain in the notes of his voice, cracked and guarded and she _did_ this.

She suddenly feels desperate for him to understand, for him to forgive her and so she leans back just enough to grab the sides of his head and pull his gaze to her own. Both of their eyes are more than a little bit watery.

"I'm trying to tell you…" she trails off, wants to stomp her foot in frustration at her own limitations. "Me too," she finally blurts. He looks confused and she steps closer, pressing herself entirely against him, hoping to erase his doubts in any way she can think of, takes a deep breath and then doesn't stop talking for anything. "I heard you Castle, I heard you, when I got shot and I'm sorry, I am _so_ sorry for not being ready then, and for needing so much time and for not telling you and I just, _me too_ Castle. I…" she stutters to a stop arching into him because she can't get close enough and she just wishes he could _feel_ what she's feeling and _know_.

He swallows the rest of her sentence with his mouth though, _me too_ apparently enough for him, and then she's inhaling sharp and acute through her nose as his kiss presses her into another plane of existence all together because _fuck_. The buttons on her shirt are digging in hard now, the light brush of them outside his door lost to the urgent press of his chest and his stomach, he's entirely clutching her and she never wants him to let go. He does though, as abruptly as he latched on and then he's just grasping her face, holding her there, panting.

"Are you sure?" he gasps, out of breath and bright with her. Her fingers move down to clutch at the material of his shirt at his shoulders, skirting his injury and then smooth down over the little green lantern rectangles she left to claim him.

"_Yes_. Yes Castle, yes." He lurches forward for her again, capturing her lips over and over, quick, shallow little tugs and she's laughing suddenly as his face breaks into a grin and then he's mouthing across her jaw and down her neck and hugging her to him and whispering things in her ear she's wanted to hear for so long, for days for weeks for always.

_I missed you too_.


	2. two

Moving to the couch for a glass of water and a breather after _I miss you_ and _me too_ seems like a good idea, a smart idea, to put a little bit of space and a non-alcoholic beverage in between them while this is still so new and fresh and not quite worked out yet. His couch cushions dip though, list toward the middle, and she thinks he should really, really be able to afford a better sofa. They're thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder when she finally gives into temptation and lets her eyes glance down to his lips.

"I should…" she says slowly, stops when his fingers brush the back of her neck through her hair, the hand he had resting innocuously behind her head on the couch finally giving into temptation too.

"You should…?" His voice is only a breath away, index finger making her shiver as it drags a slow path down the nape of her neck and under the collar of her shirt. She swallows thickly.

They hold eye contact as she tenses every single muscle in her body, restraining. She really, _really_ wants to just climb into his lap but she's trying to go _slow_. (When did going slow become an _issue_?) Her eyes slide closed as his finger plays against her spine, thumb sweeping up into her hairline, rubbing tiny little circular patterns against the baby soft skin there.

He whispers her name but she doesn't open her eyes.

"Will you kiss me again?" she finally exhales, biting her lip, waiting.

She hears him suck in a breath, his fingers stilling against her neck. "Will you open your eyes while I do?"

She blinks her lids, finding him so, so close and then he's pressing forward, stealing a kiss from her willing mouth. She groans softly as his tongue just barely brushes her bottom lip, watching his pupils get bigger, the blue of his irises darken, watching him lose himself in her, and then she's grabbing for the sides of his face and tossing a leg over his lap. They both stop to gasp when she settles _right_ on top of him, an accidentally perfect slide of her pelvis against his, and then it's all open mouths and swallowed sighs until his palm skims up and under the loose material of her shirt to splay completely against her lower stomach. She arches sharply at the feel of him there, in a place where he's never ever touched, her muscles jumping under his palm.

"God, you're soft," he groans haphazardly into her cheek, kissing his way across her jaw. She fists her fingers in the back of his hair at the comment, making him arch a little bit this time, needing to hold on because Castle whispering things in her ear while he's touching her is unsurprisingly _intense_. He presses a wet, open mouthed kiss on the underside of her jaw, just on her neck, and then slides his hand back out from under her shirt, stopping to toy with the button on the bottom. He pulls back to look at her and then flicks the button open with his thumb. "Is this okay?" he breathes into her mouth, wanting permission.

"_Yes_." She sits back on his thighs and watches him unbutton her completely from the bottom up, barely breathing as his knuckles brush the bare skin of her stomach when he finally finishes. His index finger is the first thing to really touch her with purpose, he taps it softly against the top of her chest and then lets it drag down down down, over her bullet hole, between her breasts, down over her bellybutton and then right to the waistband of her jeans. "God, Castle," she groans, coming completely undone by a solitary finger on barely hidden skin. She can't help but wonder what it will be like when he –

Just as she starts to let her mind _go_, his hand is pulling away and she's left in his lap, utterly untouched. She starts to say his name, but then he's reaching for the jacket she left clumsily draped over the side of the couch, rummaging around in one of the pockets. _Oh_. His hand comes back to her with two green lantern bandaids and her heart starts thudding because she kind of forgot that he's never actually seen her scars before. This is not what she wants to be thinking about when they're finally _doing this_, but then he's surprising her in that way that only he ever really does, heading straight for the place where her bandaids will be the mirror image of his. Going straight for her _heart_ not her scars, and _fuck_ he knows her entirely too well because it's not her physical scars that really mar her, that really matter, it's the ones that no one can even see.

She's quiet as he presses them on, so, so gently, and then he's leaning down, dropping a kiss there, whispering something that she's sure she's heard before, something he doesn't want to pressure her into saying but she can practically feel him vibrating with it, with _I love you, Kate_, and so she blindly reaches for his tshirt, fisting his bandaids tightly as he finishes loving hers. When he's done, her eyes are bright for him and she grabs the back of his head with the hand not clutching at his shirt, crushing their mouths together frantically, desperate to prove to him that they can _fix this_, that it's worth fixing, that it's _everything_.

She leaves them on, her two green lantern bandaids, as he picks her up and carries her to his bedroom, as he kicks the door shut while she tears at his shirt, as he lays her out on his bed, as he worships her long into the night. They pull at her skin a little bit as she twists underneath his weight, tug not unlike her scars except that these are a pleasant reminder, some physical _mark_ of him, on her chest and inside of her as he moves, as he slides his palm up and over her chest and onto them as she arches and tries not to scream.

_She loves him too_.


End file.
